‘Thank you, Daddy,’ she said, while dragging the bowl back.

I remembered when Charity was born about eight weeks before my mother’s expected date of delivery. Though we were all pleased that it was a girl at last, she looked like a withered skeleton, tiny enough to make seasoned doctors squirm. Going to hospital almost every day and watching her suffer must have been when each of us developed a special fondness for her. All of us except Eugene, who was a year younger than Godfrey and a year older than Charity. He was a thorn in her flesh and made her a regular target for his silly jokes.

‘Ah!’ Eugene exclaimed now. ‘Look at your armpit! It looks like a gorilla’s thighs!’

Everybody turned towards Charity. She clutched her arms close to her sides and looked about to press the control buttons of a time machine and disappear. My mother’s eyes swelled with shock.

‘Why can’t you shave your armpits regularly?’ she asked. ‘Don’t you know you’re now a big girl?’

A cloud fell upon Charity’s face. At fifteen and a half, she was still very much a baby. She had wept when Princess Diana died, sobbed when we watched a documentary about people whose body parts were enlarged because of elephantiasis. While other Nigerians poured into the streets and celebrated General Sani Abacha’s sudden death, Charity stayed indoors and shed tears.

‘Is there any law that says she must shave?’ Godfrey intervened. ‘Even if there is, who makes all those laws? Whose business is it if she decides to grow a forest under her arms?’

Charity rubbed her eyes.

‘It looks dirty,’ my mother said. ‘People will think she’s untidy.’

‘Why can’t people mind their own business?’ Godfrey replied. ‘Why should they go about inspecting other people’s armpits? After all, those hairs must have been put there for a reason.’

Charity sniffed.

‘Actually, you’re right,’ I added. Not that I agreed that any girl should go about with a timberland under her arms, but for the sole purpose of coming to my darling sister’s aid in this her hour of need. ‘Scientists say that the hairs there are meant to transmit pheromones.’